Inside Leicester Tigers' three-year plan to conquer the PREM: Lessons from Sandhurst, bull-fighting trips, Geoff Parling's coaching shake-up and the summit that offers major hint on Ollie Chessum's future

Early last week, Leicester Tigers skipper Ollie Chessum knocked on the door of the club’s chief executive, Andrea Pinchen, to discuss the future. 

‘He came into my office for a quick chat that ended up being an hour and a half long,’ Pinchen tells Daily Mail Sport. 

There was a debrief of the club’s summer trip to France, where the players enjoyed a cheese and wine evening but left with mixed emotions about a visit to the bull-fighting. But the conversation focused more on what lies ahead.

England and Lions lock Chessum has become the most influential player at Welford Road and locking down his long-term future is one of the club’s biggest priorities. He is out of contract next summer but renegotiations are underway.

Huw Bevan, the head of rugby operations, joined the meeting and over a packet of Hobnobs, they outlined how the three Chessum brothers are at the heart of a three-year plan.

‘We veered off course a little bit,’ says Pinchen. ‘We talked about Dylan, Ollie’s younger brother, who lives with him and Lewis. I said: “If you’re living at home with your brothers, how great would it be to get a camera on you and do a social media video about what you’re cooking?”

‘The supporters want to get to know the players and see behind the scenes. We’ve got a club-wide strategy and it’s important for the players to be part of that. We discussed the club strategy, the three-year plan and what we want to achieve. We’re all very much aligned on that. 

'Ollie wants to win now but he also wants the club to win in three, five and 10 years’ time. He sees the importance of the academy, so we talked about that.

‘You want to be open and honest. We go out for dinner with the senior leadership team probably once a quarter. Myself, (head coach) Geoff Parling, (finance director) Fintan Kennedy, Joe Heyes, Jack van Poortvliet, Freddie Steward. 

'Everything is on the table. “What’s the gossip in the changing room? How much of it is true? How do we get tighter?”

‘For me, it’s marrying that performance with the business. If Ollie speaks to someone from corporate sales, we want them to be talking the same language. We need to get to a sustainable position and that’s our main goal, but our ambition is to be in the top two and lifting a trophy.

'That’s not three years. That’s this year. How do we generate that income to invest back into the playing side? We want to show that picture so that everybody in the club knows what they’re working towards. Presumably Ollie will be here for five years to talk about the five-year plan… we’ll see!’

At boardroom level, there are ongoing discussions around facilities. The club’s Oval Park training ground is basic by current PREM Rugby standards. The stadium’s Crumbie Stand is still made up of dated wooden seating. There is permission to develop the land outside Welford Road.

‘The training ground is a tricky one because we don’t own it,’ says Pinchen. ‘You develop it and you want to make sure you’ve got the best facilities to train, but you’ve got to marry that with how much investment you put into a training facility you don’t own. 

'We’re looking at that all the time. We’ve looked at buying a plot. We’ve looked at sharing other facilities. Everything is on the table. It’s a constant piece of work that we’re looking at.

‘With the stadium, some people look at the [Crumbie] Stand and say, “You’ve got to develop that soon, it’s a wooden stand”. It probably won’t change any time soon. When the lads are running out and everyone’s stamping their feet… you want to keep some of that tradition.

‘Then we’ve got land around the stadium, with the hotel and the plaza site. We’ve got potential for a multi-storey car park on the other side, which we’ve looked at previously. 

'Those plans got put on hold because of Covid – something that would have cost £8-9million shoots up – but that may be something we can revisit.’

The headline-making business, however, focuses on the playing group.

Fly-half Billy Searle has signed a new contract. Searle's stock rocketed last season and the club moved quickly to secure his future, removing the threat of an offer from Saracens, who remain uncertain about Fergus Burke’s future. Scrum-half Van Poortvliet is also in advanced negotiations about a new deal.

Consistency is key for Leicester, who have churned through 10 head coaches since 2013. They have not joined the wave of new PREM financial investment and their recruitment plan is built around homegrown talent.

‘We’ve been fortunate for a number of years that our two major shareholders are so supportive of us – Tom Scott and Peter Tom,’ says Pinchen. ‘They want to see the club flourish and grow. They’re not looking to make a quick bit of money. 

'They’re personally and emotionally invested. There are a lot of conversations happening across the PREM with Red Bull and Dyson coming to town (at Newcastle and Bath respectively). A lot of people are suddenly looking at rugby and thinking, “This could be interesting” but our major shareholders are super supportive. 

'We’re sitting in a good place. Our main goals from a commercial side are to get our data systems really singing, enabling us to fill the stadium.

‘We want to be the best and to be competing every year, but we don’t want to block our academy growth. We really want to nurture from within. When we’re looking at our recruitment pathway and depth chart for three years’ time, we don’t want to sign somebody who is going to block that pathway. 

'Look at Mako Vunipola. We’ve got a history of signing more experienced, older players that has worked so well for us in the past with Mike Brown, Chris Ashton and Richard Wigglesworth. They worked so hard and shared so much. It’s about marrying that sprinkling of international experience with those real Leicester-through-and-through youths.’

Following the departures of support staff Brett Deacon, Peter Hewat and Alex Davies, Parling has been forced to shuffle his backroom team over the summer. 

Rod Seib, Craig Childs, Craig Newby and Freddie Burns have all joined the club. Analyst Matt Egan was also poached by England, with Simon Barbour returning after a stint with the All Blacks under Scott Robertson.

‘I want evolvement of our game, rather than any radical changes,’ says Parling, who invited all his new staff around to his house for a BBQ during the summer.

‘There are a few tweaks. Can we improve a few areas of our attack when we lose momentum? Can we force errors a bit more with our defence? When things aren’t going our way, can we go back to our fundamentals and wrestle back momentum?

‘In terms of the environment, we’re thinking more about how we can adapt and communicate under pressure. We’ve had guys from Sandhurst come in to look at effective communication. Finding out what they do when their communication goes wrong when they’re on the frontline.’

New mauling interpretations have been another focus point throughout the off-season. Defenders are no longer able to disrupt by ‘swimming’ up the side of the ruck, providing an advantage to the attacking team. 

Leicester are traditionally one of the strongest mauling teams in the league and lock Cameron Henderson says their pack welcome the changes.

‘This is the first time playing club rugby with the new interpretations,’ says Henderson. ‘It gives a massive advantage to the attack. It means guys on the outside of the maul are now completely redundant, so if you have a very square maul, you’re more likely to score. 

'Defensively, you need to be more violent early on. It doesn’t change a huge amount but it gives you a huge advantage in attack. I’d definitely say it’s something we welcome. Geoff and (assistant coach) Neil Fowkes spoke about it in pre-season. It’s an important thing for boys to get their heads around.

‘It’s been nice to come into a pre-season with continuity of head coach. It makes a huge difference in terms of knowing what’s expected of you and where you stand. The defensive system has changed and we’ve got a new attack coach but the fundamentals are the same. We’ll keep trying to evolve but we won’t go away from our identity.’